Have you ever driven a school bus through the crowded streets of Port Au Prince, Haiti where people make their own lanes and the speed is stop go stop go? Yeah, me either. But I have been in the front seat of a bus that was going through those streets and with every move you hold your breath and pray that no one hits anyone. It’s pretty intense. Want to know what else is intense? Standing in a small room with no air flow, with sweat dripping down your face, while holding a scalpel and helping to debride a young girls burns down her leg and foot.

When we arrived in Haiti on June 11th, I was feeling excited to be there, but inadequate and wondering who I was to be back in the mission field. I was with a team of people who are paramedics, a respiratory therapist, and a nurse. In my mind, they were all so much more qualified to be there running the medical clinics than I was. We had quite the adventure trying to get through the streets of Port-Au-Prince (in an old school bus) where people choose their own lanes to drive in and no one wants to let anyone else through and the horns are just blowing from all directions. We ended up on a different side of PAP than we wanted to be on and spent some time sitting in a restaurant because there were demonstrations and protests on the roads leading out of town. After about 5 hours of driving and waiting, we made it to MOHI in Grand Goave.

Each day, we set up our clinics in different villages and saw between 80-90 patients a day. We diagnosed a lot of colds, reflux, arthritis, vaginal infections, ringworm, scabies, high blood pressure, and we were able to tell some ladies that they are pregnant. I got to hold some cute babies, play duck duck goose and hide and seek with some kids, and cared for everyone who came to my table. After that first day in clinic, I became more confident in the clinic. Everyone on my team was so encouraging, supportive, knowledgeable, and we definitely knew how to make each other laugh. When clinics were over, we went back to MOHI and went swimming in the ocean (or took a nap), had some dinner, and played some good games of cards. We even got the Haitian doctor and dentist in on our games which was quite the comical experience.

One of our translators one day asked me why I keep going back to Haiti. I responded that it is a beautiful country with mountains and water and I just love the people. Haiti is one of the world’s poorest country and has been through so much devastation. Yes, there is a lot of poverty, garbage everywhere, and buildings that are only partially built. But when you look past that, you can see the beauty of the landscape and the people saying Bonjou or Bonswa as you walk past them in the morning or afternoon. As we were driving up the mountain to a clinic one day, I was just overwhelmed by how beautiful it was. The words to the song Reckless Love kept coming into my head that say There’s no mountain He won’t climb up coming after me. There was so much confirmation that day, that Haiti was where I belonged that week.

It has taken me so long to write this blog because I couldn’t figure out how to put into words what the week in Haiti was like. I still feel like this isn’t the best writing, so I will share a few pictures to help: